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To win playing BORDERS, you need to beat La Migra (video)

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BORDERS is a game from Gonzalo Alvarez where players walk in the shoes of an immigrant to endure the danger of a journey across the desert. You only win if you can avoid La Migra and beat the heat by hiding under bushes and staying hydrated. Many make the journey towards the border with the promise of a better life, but only the fittest survive.

Mas…To win playing BORDERS, you need to beat La Migra (video)

A professor visits migrants at the border near Nogales, Mexico

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border_immersion_morenoBy the time the two young women walked into the shelter, the other migrants were mostly finished with their meals. They stood out as two women among dozens of recently deported men enjoying a meal before continuing on their way. I did what I had been doing all that January morning: I served them each a glass of hot chocolate and a plate of food.

We were volunteering at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in Nogales, Mexico, as part of the Center for Social Concerns’ Border Immersion Faculty Seminar. For several years, Notre Dame students have participated in this seminar, but this was the first time it was being offered to faculty and staff as well. As a professor of U.S. Latino literature who studies and teaches about the border, this was an opportunity for me to experience the border in a different way.

Mas…A professor visits migrants at the border near Nogales, Mexico

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What happens when young deportees get sent back? (PBS video)

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Even before the recent MIGRA raids targeting families denied asylum, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Mexican immigrants have been deported annually. Many were kids when their parents brought them over the border.

And those who grew up in the U.S. have found themselves living in what feels like a foreign country — Mexico. It’s like a dream Los Otros Dreamers never imagined.

PBS News Hour Special Correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro talked with some young people who are dealing with culture shock as they try to start over — strangers in a strange land.

Paletas y Racismo: I was a teenage paletero – in Georgia

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omarAfter we published our shocking story about a missing El Paso paletero, a real-life former ice cream man reached out to POCHO on Facebook.

Jonathan Omar Ramirez (Facebook profile pic, right) had been a teenage paletero, he said. We asked him for his story:

POCHO: So what led you to become a paletero?

Well my friends from high school told me about it. Many did it before and they said there was a lot of cash involved and within a couple of hours of work. Also I was very poor.

POCHO: Was this right after high school?

No [it was] while I was in high school. Still I got money to go to the movies and for food or whatever I wanted to buy

POCHO: Wow, cool! So were you allowed to eat your own ice cream? Did you just have to pay it back?

Mas…Paletas y Racismo: I was a teenage paletero – in Georgia

Day laborers sing ‘Ese Gúey No Paga’ (That dude doesn’t pay)

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thatdudeNot only is getting the work really fracking hard – you have to hang outside Home Depot and chase contractors’ trucks – but lots of times day laborers work all day and then get ripped off for their pay.

This cumbia music video from Los Jornaleros del Norte (The Day Laborers of the North) and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network highlights the fight against wage theft.

“Ese gúey no paga,” they sing. “That dude doesn’t pay!”

Mas…Day laborers sing ‘Ese Gúey No Paga’ (That dude doesn’t pay)

Cold war chills Rio Grande Valley town as raspa rebellion heats up

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raspawar (PNS reporting from EDINBURG, TX) Eddie’s Raspas, the sunny yellow shack out on Sprague, used to be the place to be on a scorching Valley afternoon.

“People would come from all around and say, ‘Eddie, which of your five delicious flavors shall I have today?’” Eddie Cardenas recalled fondly. “It was great.”

Until six weeks ago, that is, when an electric-blue trailer moved in across the street.

Cardenas said that newcomer Chuy’s Famous Raspas is stealing his business, and shaming the shaved ice industry as a whole.

“It’s trashy,” he said, speaking over the pop music coming from the nearby trailer. “You give people so many flavor options, they feel paralyzed! Now I’m hearing whispers about burritos and Frito pies? It’s war, I’m telling you.

Mas…Cold war chills Rio Grande Valley town as raspa rebellion heats up

Uncle Sam’s migracorrido ‘La Bestia (The Death Train)’ (music, lyrics)

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From Central America comes this ballad that’s fast rising the Latin American charts. It’s all about the dangerous Death Train that Central American drug war refugees ride on their way across Mexico enroute to El Norte. In Spanish they call the train The Beast — La Bestia.

And who is the man behind this music? It’s a name we all love, but who knew he could sing!? This track comes from Uncle Sam, who hired an ad agency to make a hit record.

Mas…Uncle Sam’s migracorrido ‘La Bestia (The Death Train)’ (music, lyrics)

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